I tried the ziptie on young chicks and it was not fun. If you do a young chickens you have to make sure to watch the legs because they grow fast. I am going to toe punch young chicks then band latter. I am using bandettes as they are numbered and are size to the breed of chickens. They are spirals like a keychain but made of plastic. Easy to put on an 18 week old chicken. There is a toe punch chart that chows how to mark hatched chicks. There is a link in one of the post that topick is about toe punching and banding.

The numbered bandettes are good, but sometimes they can take them off. For a more permanent solution, try the metal type similar to what is put on chickens when they are NPIP blood tested. You'll need a pair of pliers to put them on and if they need to be removed, you'll need wire cutters.

I use the tiny narrow zip ties for the new chicks since I have to change them out so often. I use the spiral bands for the older ones. They're fairly easy to put on and take off. They come in a bunch of different colors so you can use many different color combinations to mark the chicks. You can reuse them too most of the time which I like. Like with any band you have to watch and change them as they grow.

One of the reasons for banding is to be able to tell what bird you are looking at as it grows. When the bird gets older you can tell if that bird is the one that was friendly, bad or other things, as it is growing up. I wish I band early in there lives to remember each bird this way.

I use colored zip ties and I have a Red, White and Blue bird

I thought a numbered band would allways be on the other side of where I was looking. Where colored bands are all around the band.

do they tend to pick at colored bands? or more so one color over another?

been thinking of banding, for my breeding program I want to start up.

meri

We've had some hens that were banded with clip rings when we got them, and I've got a few pullet-sized clip rings for this year's pullets but they're growing out of them soon. None of ours has paid any attention to these whatsoever. (Red, white and green bands, though I don't think color matters)​

Well reason we're banding is
1) telling the chooks apart as far as parentage and
2) telling what we assume are boys from the girls (vent sexing practise) until they've grown enough for us to tell in other ways.

So basically we'll have to band and replace as they grow. Is there any chance they'll pull the zip ties tighter? I imagine that the "wrap-around" type can become undone... Am leaning towards clip bands (seems the easiest for me to get, not the widest range to chose from here).